Digitisation and Design Thinking

What is the difference between digitisation and digital transformation? Digitalisation is about applying technology into the existing business. Digital transformation means doing things in a new, digital way. It leads to an entirely new market, as well as new customer and business realities. - www.netguru.com

While going through an article in Medium.com by Robosoft tech of March '19, listing the changes happening in society because of digitization and the challenges of Design Thinking (click here), the promise Design Tyhinking holds for the future in brilliant.

All digitisation interventions of late have resulted in development of society, improvement of productivity and better value realisation from products and processes. We see 

• product companies becoming service companies, like IBM.
• Product companies transitioning to product and service companies, eg. Mercedes and Audi besides selling products also hire their vehicles for longer duration
  
• Service cos becoming product companies, eg. Amazon selling Echo, Kindle e-reader etc
• Digitisation has increased the customer expectations from business, customers demand more features, comfort, safety, security etc
• By flattening the competitive landscape, Digitisation has made barriers of entry low, eg. Amazon.in also competes with Sapna and Higginbothams in India.. 
• Businesses face challenges not just from within the sector but also from across the sector, eg,  Hilton faces competition from not just Sheraton, but from Airbnb, Tesla faces challenge not from other EV manufacturers like Tata, but from the IT giant Apple.
• Any organisation interpreting the customer data finding hidden patterns, drawing insights are able to exploit the data more beneficially than organisations that do not carry out data analytics

are the changes happening in modern society.

How to carry out Design Thinking in the new digitized environments ?

As different from other designing processes, Design Thinking basically is 

• human centered 
• an iterative design process
• helps simplify the customer journey
• adds customer value across business and functions

To better exploit Design Thinking, organisations need to 

• avoid short-term thinking and concentrate on the bigger picture
• manage the different touch points to make it more customer responsive
• build a design culture in the organisation as Design Thinking is not just a product based activity, it is a process based activity too
• Iterate many times over - don't be set on perfection, iterate many times starting with a Minimum Viable Product or Process and then improving upon it based on the customer feedback and data
  

Design Thinking offers humanity better and better options and convenience. For example if we take banking, 

• the old banking needed customers to go to the bank and stand in queues to withdraw and deposit cash or carry other transactions etc.
  
• the Teller mechanism reduced the customer's difficulty 
• Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) simplified much of these transactions
• Internet banking got popular and was carried out through our desktop machines from office or home 
• Mobile banking now that enables banking on the move from anywhere.

The main focus in all these tectonic shifts have been on the customer with numerous iterations that have happened with technology playing the disruptive and value adding role. 

We have explained in the above writing how Design Thinking can be applied for digitization, ie localised digital experience sharing. But can Design Thinking also be applied for the wholesome Digital Transformation experience across  ecosystems ? Indeed it can be, but the experience and effort can be large, engaging and time consuming with potentially rich dividends to be reaped. Banks across the country are going through such a Design Thinking exercise of Digital Transformation of whole ecosystems.

George.

Ransomware attacks .. How to prevent ..

At times we find  our computer systems do not open or respond to our commands. We are subject to Denial of Service attacks, also called ransomware. It is so called because the software will lock our system and only when ransom is exchanged , will our systems be open. The ransom passes through the secretive bitcoin system.

It so happened to me in Goa Engineering College, during the early 2000. I was setting up the college elearning website, half way through the classes, many sessions completed. Suddenly one fine morning when I came to the dept I found I could not login to the system I was exited out and could not run the lab nor the class from the machine. Luckily that time I had just one or two subjects on the computer and hence could afford to reformat the machine  and reload the Linux OS and run the system. There was a delay of a week. 

While going through an Oct 2016 HBR article by Mohammed Ali on the same topic, (click here), the data was very disturbing. Every year ransom ware attacks in US cost upwards of $ 1 billion and app 4000 ransomware attacks happen daily in US alone, asking for ransom and payment happens through the Darkweb through bitcoins.

A global survey revealed that about 43% of middle level managers and 25% of senior and C level managers were subjected to ransomware strikes in US in 2016. Neatly written fraudulent emails make the executive click on some unsuspected links causing the ransomware to reside in the host computer increasing its vulnerability to attacks later on. Ransomware spreads through not updated un-patched applications.

1. Proper awareness creation and training sessions will help. 

2.Deploy updated anti-virus software. 

3. Avoid human errors by asking executives to be cautious while working with data. 

4. Always store a duplicate of the data.

5. In case of an attack, shut down the system and inform the authorities of the breach.

6. Assess the damage and copy from backup.

With increasing use of systems from WFH , the risk of ransomware attacks are going to increase in the coming years. We need to be well prepared for the

George.

Design Thinking and Innovation ..

Many of us have the impression that Design Thinking is a totally different approach to solving modern day problems and is different from our many different approaches to innovation that has happened in the past.

Click here to go through a 2008 seminal article by Tim Brown in HBR explaining the deeper facets of Design Thinking.

According to the author, Design Thinking is another aspect of Innovation, which stresses more on the human aspect of Innovation, helping solve human related problems with a good understanding of human interactions, feelings, empathy, emotions. It is different from any other innovation exercise that may look at improved value creation, higher productivity, efficiency etc more than the human aspect.

What should be a Design Thinker's personality profile  ?

Tim Brown mentions in his article that a Design Thinker should have mainly the follower character traits

Empathy - the design thinker should be a person who empathises with the customer, understands his pain points, the challenges, view the world from many different perspectives, ie, customer, supplier, manufacturer etc. He has the ability to look at the problem at the minute level and generate insights that can foster innovation

Integrative Thinking - design thinkers not only look at the analytical aspects but have wholesome thinking that helps to understand the problem better or expose solutions hitherto invisible to an untrained naked eye

Optimism - extreme optimism exhibited by the design thinkers go on the thought that there is at least one optimised better solution than the present one that is under practice

Experimentation - incremental advancements do not generate radical solutions, it is wholesome, repetitive engagements and brushes with reality and practice that can generate optimised solutions

Collaboration - it is interdisciplinary collaboration with people from different disciplines, practitioners etc that can help advance design thinking in different dimensions

All DT projects go through three phases

• Inspiration
• Ideation and 
• Implementation 

How can we make Design Thinking part of our Innovation thinking in the organisation ? Tim Brown brings in lot of practical ideas into the cycle to help faster achieve the goals.

• Start at the beginning - let design thinkers do the initial exploration for you on the projects and ideas to work on
  
• Take human centred approach - can bring human insights that were never explored or attempted
  
• Try early and often - try prototypes as early as the first week of execution, try quite often , collect feedback and improvise
  
• Seek outside help - engage with customers and other stakeholders to develop a deep insight
  
• Blend big and small projects - to help keep the motivation going, get small business units take lead in small projects while enterprise wide top leadership can lead large projects that span across departments and functions
  
• Budget to the pace of innovation - be able to easily tweak the innovating cycle to match the budgeting process, to guide through the implementation
  
• Find talent from multiple sources - hiring from interdisciplinary programs from design, biological sciences, mathematics , Physics etc can help bring the much needed diversity of thinking in the DT process
  
• Plan for the practical cycle - practical cycles of implementation in the industry is 15 - 18 months, when employees keep moving in and out. Planning the development and implementation cycle within this time period can see many projects go from initiation to fruition
  

Design Thinking is really an innovation process that brings the creative, inventive, ingenious mindset of humans to the fore to arrive at effective customer oriented solutions.

George.

Elements of Design Thinking process and a case of deployment ..

Design Thinking basically focuses on people. The people focus of the Design Thinking process makes it very practical and relevant in common daily situations.

Click here to read an article, a blog from www.accenture.com, on Why people are at the centre of the Design Thinking process. 

We know the Design Thinking Process has mainly 5 processes or steps and they are Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test.

Design Thinking Process has mainly 5 elements, these elements exhibit the different features of the process as also its importance. 

They are -

1. Human centered -the DT process is very focused on empathy, people centred and understands the needs and desires of humans and suitably designs the product or process

2. Creative and playful - the DT process is carried out as an interesting creative playful activity that fosters creativity of the participants. The playful creative environment ensures the outcomes are equally creative and enjoyable for the end customers

3. Iterative - DT process does not stop after one iteration, the solution is challenged again and again until we are able to come up with an improved value added solution to the problem.

4. Collaborative - people with diverse perspectives work multi disciplinary teams that look at problems from different directions, helping understand it better,  together creating a superior solution

5. Prototype driven - collecting feedback is a great tool to help improve the process or to improve the prototype. The term prototype signifies that the process iterates to come up wit improved value added solutions

Click here to know about Design Thinking in more depth from Career Foundry ..

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Defining a practical example of Design Thinking exercise in www.amazon.in

The great E-retailing company Amazon is known for it's extreme attention to customer service. Here we are carrying out a Design Thinking exercise trying to find out why Amazon customers experience delay in getting their shipments across the country. Sometimes the delay extends to weeks altogether in the city, not to forget about the towns and villages. 

First let us prepare a brief initial execution plan which lists the issues, challenges, constraints etc in the DT exercise.

1. Empathise

Some of the problems faced by Amazon pantry customers

• delay, often running to weeks ..
• some Amazon deliveries take longer delivery time
• broken / multiple deliveries for a single order
• delivery people disturbing office / class attendees by calling at delivery time
• lot of Amazon related packaging material at home every month
  

2. Define

A better understanding of the customer problem

• how can we deliver products quickly 
• how can we deliver products for a customer in a single delivery without delivery splitting
• how can we reduce packing size and still ensure safety of product
  

3. Ideate

 Collect as many practical ideas to find a solution to the problem defined above (in red)

• have supply coordinators across various important cities and towns of India to coordinate supplies from suppliers and ensure single, faster delivery
• have Amazon local dealer network to coordinate deliveries to customers in their network area. These dealers to improve their profitability are free to deal with Amazon products and other products too
• Amazon could move from a pure click model to a click and brick model where customers could place orders via the website and collect goods at their nearest Amazon physical store at the customer's convenience.
• Amazon could coordinate with the India Post network across the country, almost 1,55,015 post offices (90% in rural areas), offering good commission to the Postal dept (60%) and postmen (40%). This is an opportunity for extra income for the postal dept and postmen too. The postal dept should be ready to change with the times.
• have a reliable network of volunteers / assistants across the country (preference to mom and pop store owners), improving the employment scenario across the country to coordinate deliveries to end customers.
• have a logistics network collaboration with the state transport departments in each state to ensure goods are transported across the state fast, cheap and reliably
• 
  

4. Prototype 

Deploy the plans or actions fast and watch results, get feedback and improve

• Employ more people to coordinate and move items from Amazon warehouse to customer premises in the shortest time by providing logistics, fast, safe, cheap transportation 
• build warehouses and Customer Service centres across the country
• ensure safe and fast return logistics
  

5. Test

 See the success or failure of actions to assess future developments and/or deployments

• Test the idea in the field and get customer feedback
• are customers excited and happy ?
• enquire whether any more problems exist
• are the proposed solutions cost effective or expensive 
• are proposed solutions customer focused (highest priority) or employee focused ?
  

George..

 

Creativity and a Learning Mindset ..

Is there a limit to how creative and effective one can be ? I believe there is no limit. It is all in the brain. If 96 year old Prof. Goodfellow of the University of Texas could jointly share the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2019 for developing the Lithium ion battery, it is ample proof that age is not block for our creativity. 

Hardwork and creativity are different. Hardwork does not in most case make use of creative thinking, it rarely throws out creative ideas, rather it could be repetitive ideas that are perfected. Creativity on the other hand, is churning out new thoughts and ideas that could help improve our life and living conditions in society.

What we need besides a creative mind is a growth mindset. Most of us have a fixed mindset which dictates our thoughts and actions. We have set a limit to our capability and creativity and never try to go beyond it. This fixed mindset, more often, limits our growth avenues.

While going through the paper Unlocking your team's creativity, HBR, Jan '19 by Rebecca Shambaugh (click here) , the author speaks that a leader should try to have members in his team who are not only qualified and talented at the task, but also possesses the creative expression of talent and innovative thinking.

As per Teresa Amabile, HBR, Oct '98, (click here), creativity has three components

1. expertise
2. creative thinking skills
3. motivation

A Growth Mindset, according to it's proponent Dr. Carol Dweck, is an underlying belief that we can improve our lives by our own effort. Setbacks in life are normal for them and they accept these setbacks as opportunities to look back, take the learning from it and grow. No setback can weaken them, instead, failures give them opportunities to observe, learn and grow. These people learn from their mistakes and help people grow. 

Increasing mindfulness is also an important trait one needs to develop over time. Taking a long walk in the morning to free the mind, taking time consciously off from digital distractions and so on. This can be achieved by practicing occasional meditation sessions that helps one to improve working memory to increase cognitive flexibility as well as brainstorming ability.

Engaging in a simple breathing exercise in the middle of your work to oxygenate your brain can really increase creativity of mind. New and fresh thoughts flood your mind resulting in more effective brainstorming sessions. 

All our group activity boils down to the fact that while it is easy to engage in personal innovation, it is not that easy to engage in group innovation. Group Innovation is what can drive a team together forward, to achieve common team goals.

George..

Developing the next best antiviral drugs ..

Remdesivir is the only anti-viral drug with US FDA approval we know that has been developed and was partially successful in our war against the Covid 19 virus from May 2020. It is because Remedesivir was developed specifically for other viruses but not for Covid 19 virus. But we have tried at least 10 more more drugs in vaccine form ever since starting Dec 2020, the efficacy of which is still debatable..

After Edward Jenner in 1796 in UK developed and administered the first successful vaccine against smallpox, humanity has benefited a lot from vaccines for 224 years .

As of Jan 23 2021, two drugs  are authorized and recommended to prevent COVID-19 in US. ​​​​Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna. Phase 3 clinical trials are happening for AstraZeneca, Janssen and Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine​s.

In India, the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, known as Covishield, or the domestic product, Covaxin, developed by the pharmaceutical company Bharat Biotech are available..

In UAE, Chinese Sinopharm, US' Pfizer and Russian Sputnik are available. EU has Comirnaty developed by BioNTech and Pfizer ..

All these vaccines are of 2 doses to be administered 2 - 3 weeks apart to improve efficacy .. Only 1 dose will give 50% efficacy while 2 doses can give almost 95% efficacy.

Vaccine efficacy is the percentage reduction of disease in a vaccinated group of people compared to an unvaccinated group, using the most favorable conditions. This info on Covid 19 vaccine administration across the world useful as of 23 Jan 2021.

Drug research has seen drugs coming out fast, in a matter of 10 months, but we do not yet know how effective they are going to be in the long run. How can we be better prepared for drugs next time a similar pandemic strikes humanity ?

This HBR article (click here) tells us that to really protect humanity, we need to develop drugs soon enough. We have had bad experiences starting from the Spanish flu in 1920s to the lastest Ebola and Sars Cov1.

For this we need to 

1. identify the primary medical threats facing humanity

2. focus on developing small molecule anti-viral drugs and 

3. make societal commitment to this type of research

which will make humanity better prepared for the next great viral pandemic that may hit humanity. 

George.

An optimistic outlook on Climate Change, post Covid ..

Climate Change is a phenomenon all of are well informed and are aware of the damage and risks it can cause to the flora and fauna of the world. Our industrial growth from the start of the Industrial revolution of 1700s to the present day has benefitted humanity in umpteen ways, helping raise the standards of living, health, etc of humans, at the same time it has caused untold hardships to the many flora and fauna inhabiting planet earth. Humans by now have excellent control on the resources of the world and how to harness it for the betterment of humanity, but it has also brought us to the brink of disaster given the high frequency of extreme climatic events that have been happening around the world.

While browsing through material on climate change to take for my class of second semester Operations students at Alliance School of Business, Bangalore, I came across an interesting article by Dr Vivek Murthy, present Surgeon General of US and his wife Alice Chen, published in Harvard Business Review of Sept. '19, titled Should we be more optimistic about fighting climate change ?, (click here). Dr, Vivek came up from humble beginnings from Karnataka, the state where I am staying now and which is the IT and Digital capital of India.

The article made interesting reading.  

Dr Vivek makes the startling statement that climate change is the greatest public health challenge facing communities around the world.

Though the article was written before the Covid virus struck the world and put it in limbo for almost 12 months, the push for using sustainable products was existent then.

World over we see a shift in lighting applications from filament based bulbs to CFL bulbs and finally to Light Emitting Diode (LED) bulbs which has brought down energy consumption by as much as 90% and also reduces the total cost of usage as the life of LED bulbs are significantly much higher than Filament bulbs. The cost and performance comparison given in the fig to the right by the Earth Project (www.earthproject.com) is in itself very eye opening. As we all know usage of LED bulbs is not only good for the earth, but it also good on your purse.

The 2017 launched Project Gigaton from Walmart to take off greenhouse gas emissions from the value chains of the world has been having remarkable success and is a great reminder for organisations around the world to look after mother earth. 

The Terraton initiative from Boston, US pays farmers for being environment friendly by capturing Carbon in the soil by switching to regenerative farming practices.

The Covid scare has frightened people from artificially prepared and packaged fast food food to more natural food, including fruits and vegetables. They are more aware of the quality of the food they consume. This is promoting healthy lifestyle and helping the farmers of the country to earn more by means of organic farming.

Though climate change is staring at us on our faces, it is not a bad future we are facing, though extreme natural events have increased. The improved awareness and numerous environment projects taken up like Project Gigaton etc are bound to make the earth a better place to inhabit for future generations to come, let us strive for that.

George.